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PC-BSD 0.5a Beta: BSD For Dummies
linuxbeta writes "PC-BSD 0.5a beta has now been released! You can download the 670Mb ISO file from our download page. This version fixes some minor bugs, and now has fully automatic network support. Screenshots available." So what's it all about? From the PC-BSD FAQ: "This OS has as its goals to be user-friendly, especially in the area of software installation and management, something that many of the *nix based distros have not yet mastered."
I have been using BSDs for a while now. They really aren't all that bad to use in the first place. They simply have a steep learning curve if you've never used them before.
Personally I don't think a "User Friendly" flavor of BSD is needed. What is needed is trained admins.
BSD is not meant at all for average joe; and selling it as such is misrepresenting the collective BSD OS. BSDs are powerful, stable, secure server and workstation OSes. NetBSD also runs good on your toaster.
FreeBSD: The Power to Serve!
It would appear that this is the first BSD with a fully-graphical installer. Kudos! When will we see this installer backported and available as an option during the CD-build process? :)
This sounds interesting, a dummy that runs *BSD. I guess it is rather appropriate, given that a dummy is still and lifeless. I'm surprised it took someone this long to think of it.
Next up: Windows for Japanese commuter trains, MacOS for Spongebob Squarepants, and PalmOS for the San Fernando Valley.
The philosophy is interesting. It's also the first instance of something that sounds cheesey but I'd love to tack on to XP when I tortured with that: The Eye Candy Meter
But, the question is what's it for? The key thing seems to be a great sense of integration, etc. But, as far as I can tell, most of the things that someone who wants a *nix with a gui are not there. I may have missed some included alternatives, but you'll do without:
Ouch! I suspect you won't be using this to do office, web or database work for now. Complete package list/release notes here
the clock on the wall says 4 til 7
I belive these screenshots are not intended for "Us" (as in the experienced users.
They are to show the new guys what is in store for them when they get the system up and running and how the desktop will look.
As remember this is targeted at the "Newbies" and most of them probably have never seen KDE let alone know what it is
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
The BSDs do use GPL code, gcc being one of many examples. For the most part, it's the installer we're probably talking about here, thus not part of the base system, so it's probably not so much of an issue if one of the BSDs decided to adopt it.
Not sure if I would want this sort of installation or not, but I think that the BSD projects could benefit from easier installations. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do it now, but it could be made a bit easier. Right now I'd say the future of BSD installation is the DragonFly installer.
You've fallen into the Microsoft trap. The brainwashing is complete. You now assume an OS has to have a GUI. You're probably starting to wonder why X11 doesn't have a built in web browser.
Believe it or not, you don't need the eye candy to get work done. Many computer tasks don't even need a human in the loop.
Why is this being launched as "PC-BSD"? This is just the standard FreeBSD installer redone (word for word) with a GUI interface. And by standard this I mean straight out of the box, without any tweaks. KDE doesn't even have font smoothing turned on!
Let's not pretend that "PC-BSD" is something new or exciting. It doesn't fill a new niche (Free / Open / Net) or take the OS in a new direction (Dragonfly). As it stands, other than the GUI installer this is strictly "Look mom, I made me a distro!" However, if done as part of the FreeBSD effort this could be valuable.
I'm sure the FreeBSD team would welcome these folks' effort at building a GUI installer (not that the text one is difficult to use...it is very straightforward), and instructions on contributing to FreeBSD are available at www.freebsd.org.
You aren't the target market.
People complaining about server installs and power user installs shouldn't use this: they are not the target market, and they should quit complaining and simply not use it: no loss.
Complaining about the desktop choice is another self-defeating proposition: he had to pick *something*, and it had to be one thing to start with, not "pick one of 1000". It also has the benefit of giving a platform target ABI to developers who want to do desktop applications: one of the biggest reasons UNIX systems don't end up with a lot of applications is lack of a uniform target ABI. Even if the API was the same across multiple look-and-feel values, it's not enough to attract developers: requiring a recompilation means doubling their support and testing burdens, as well as their SKU count (if they don't ship all versions on the same CD/DVD).
One of the best things MacOS X did, from this perspective, is *not* open up the GUI code, so that people have a hard time making a zillion incompatible versions and shipping them around, fragmenting the market. I hope he does not cave in to pressure to "pull a RedHat" with a "KDE or Gnome" option.
For the average user, it's a step in the right direction, and one that all of the BSD's, save MacOS X, have been too snobby to take on their own (or too caught up in the myth of the server being the only market space that's a valid target for a BSD based OS).
There are a couple of things that could be changed to make it better, but it's miles above the fear-inspiring raw text prompt and ASCII graphics of the normal FreeBSD installer.
Instead of a hierarchical relationship between things you have to fill out, as in sysinstall, where it's an exercise for the student to traverse the installation/configuration tree, it's a simple linear progression.
Instead of dropping you to a raw login prompt, it drops you to a KDE login.
All in all, it removes much of the "fear barrier" that keeps people from even considering installing a BSD operating system on their machine in the first place.
I dislike the use of the GPL, but given that it's written against a GPL'ed toolkit, it's excusable in the face of what it provides.
Here's what else I think it needs to really polish it off:
o Graphical partition editor
It currently assumes you have a free partition lying around, and it doesn't really permit editing it. I know this is a very hard nut to crack, and that Partition Magic has an entire product dedicated to the task (AFAIK, it's the only product that can safely resize NTFS partitions); I'm not sure how doable this is, but it's near the top of the list.
NB: The only reasonably way I have ever come up with to deal with this, short of contracting the work out the the P.M. people, is a Window NT install program that allocated a chunk of disk space *inside* the NTFS, and then a booter program that is an icon on the NT desktop, and let FreeBSD use the existing allocated NTFS file as a fielsystem, after hacking the block driver to make it appear virtually contiguous. I expect that this will be the last thing on my list implemented, if ever.
o Creation of an "admin" account, rather than root
This would just be the initial user's account, with rights to "sudo"; they could name it anything they wanted to name it. The root account would be disabled by default; you could always enable it via "sudo passwd" later, if you wanted to be able to login as root instead of the user.
o Automatic walk-through for the configuration
If you have an initial account other than the root account, you can walk the user immediately through the account-specific configuration. This would be a smoother transition, rather than stopping, requiring a login, and then continuing.
o Automatic login as the admin user
I realize that this may seem much less anal than a typical UNIX appraoch to things, but it's possible to do this relatively safely, simpy by enabling a screen saver
With a torrent I can become a mirror myself if I want to donate some bandwidth.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6